Barry Hawyes gets PB 25lb Pike

My good friend and regular client Barry Hawyes landed his PB Chew Pike yesterday weighing 25lbs exactly.
We decided to join the masses over at Stratford for a couple of hours, fishing deads and our only run resulted in Barry's cracking personal best pike.

Barry is one of only a handful of anglers that have now landed 20lb+ pike from Chew using deadbaits, lures and also on the fly.

His latest fish took a float fished mackerel tail bait in 12 feet of water.

We spent the rest of the day fishing lures in other parts of the lake and also dropping the anchor from time to time trying to find some other fish.  They are there, but we'll now have to wait until the next set of trials to see if they are more willing to take the lures.

Fly fishing

In the meantime, I am fly fishing for the pike on Saturday, when only a handful of people will be on the water and I expect a decent pike or two.

For those of you wanting to target the trout, my advice is to get there quick!  Gareth Jones and his guests recently had trout to over 6lbs on minkies, while others have had loads of 4lb+ rainbows on nymphs and lures.

This has to be the best back-end rainbow trout sport on Chew for years and if the weather holds, it should last until the end of November when the lake closes for boat fishing.